Superstar Bradley Cooper said he was once held at knifepoint in New York City in 2019 on his way to pic up his daughter Lea and detailed the harrowing experience.
“I used to walk around New York City all the time with [headphones] on — and this was pre-pandemic — and I was on the subway, 11:45, to pick Lea up downtown at Russian school, and I got held up at knifepoint,” the 46-year-old actor shared during his appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. The comments were noted by Fox News in a piece published Tuesday. (RELATED: Watch Bradley Cooper In The Sinister Trailer For ‘Nightmare Alley’)
“I realized I had gotten way, way too comfortable in the city,” he added. “My guard was down.
“The Hangover” star said he was wearing sunglasses, a hat and was trying to be “incognito” when he “felt somebody coming up” to the end of the subway car where he would stand. Bradley said he just thought the person wanted to take “a photo or something” and didn’t think anything else.
“I’m up against the post like it’s ‘The French Connection’ or some s—, and then I, like, turned,” Cooper explained. “I looked down and I see a knife.”
“I remember thinking, oh, it’s a nice knife,” he added as he explained that the knife appeared to be 2 1/2 inches long with a wooden handle.
“Now, I have my headphones on the whole time so I can’t hear anything,” Cooper continued, People magazine noted. “I’m just listening to music. So it’s scored, the whole thing is scored. I see the person’s eyes and I’m taken by how young they are.”
The “A Star Is Born” actor said it was then that he “knocked” the alleged attackers arm up and ran to escape, including jumping over the turnstile. (RELATED: Irina Shayk Says She’s Finding ‘New Ground’ After Life With Bradley Cooper)
He said his attacker jumped over it too and started running away so he took his phone out to take pictures of him.
“Then I chased him up the stairs,” the superstar shared. “He started running up Seventh Avenue. I took two more photographs of him. “I ran down two police officers in an SUV, showed them the photograph, and I’m, like, talking to them, and the guy kept saying — it was so interesting — he’s like, ‘Are you stabbed?’ I was like, ‘No, no, no.’ And he goes, ‘No, check to see if you’re stabbed.'”
“What happens is people gets stabbed and they’re in shock,” he added. “I looked to see if he was right. It was crazy.”
Cooper said he was okay and returned to the subway and picked up him and Irina Shayk’s daughter, who is now 4, from school. The former couple welcomed their daughter Lea in March 2017 and split up in 2019.